Wild Child

A life of surprises

Soft nosed calves, entertaining chickens, pigs that ate rotten eggs. Dogs, and cats and wild things. I was one of those wild things.

On my own for great stretches of time on 140 acres in the Central Valley of California. Farmland. I was fantasy and animal, Disney princess and wild thing. They worked together perfectly. Making paths on my hands and knees through endless stretches of oats, just so I’d have a hiding place to play with my Barbie dolls. Going to the back of the fields where the cattails grew, and finding the most perfect mud for mud pies. Making tracks for my matchbox cars. Letting the calves suck on my fingers while they waited impatiently for their bottles.

Hot sun, hot sand. So hot you’d have to run across it to the shade if you were barefoot. Swimming in the irrigation canal, but only so far, so as not to get pulled under a deep passage and drowned. Aching to be a part of my older sibling’s exciting lives. Tagging along and being accepted, most of the time. Also used as a toy, but that seemed like a fair trade to me. Receiving rocks and squirrel tails and all of them treasures. Following the lines in the sand drawn by a stick, being on the receiving end of endless tricks, jokes and stories. I believed it all. Attention was attention, after all!

Wanting love and reassurance. Being wild and fragile, strong, and soft. Made of whimsy and dirt. But I was tamed. I was tamed by an iron will and strong hands.

Something that didn't get tamed was my tenacity. Pure rebellion at points. I won’t know it’s there, and then it rises above all else. I’ve boldly done embarrassing things with rebellious righteousness. Faced down Union aggressors. Faced down sexist idiots, Starbucks managers, famous actors, famous directors, teachers. Where did that come from when the taming was so strong? When the punishment was harsh for any push back? In the blood, is all I can guess.

I danced and sang a lot. I sang the entire score of The Sound of Music to the chickens. I WAS Maria, or Liesl. I WAS Cinderella or Snow White, or Luke Skywalker, or Lois Lane. If in my room, the soundtrack or cast recording would be played so often and be so known that I could hear it all in my head. I still can be completely in a character. It’s easy. I don’t think about it. It happens when I study a role, and as rehearsals go along. I feel it completely. Not method, just “in it”. It’s still that way. I never guessed that anyone else’s experience was different.

And then, when you’re 56, and a pandemic hits, and your career, along with every other performing artist, artisan, director, choreographer, designer, stage hand, technician, wig master, costumer, orchestra member, and conductor is dead, all at once, it can do things to your sense of self. To the “Who Am I” inside. The ability to escape into another world, another life for a few months, is gone. Now it’s just me. Who is she? I’ve forgotten.

Somewhere along the way, I've stopped imagining. I've stopped daydreaming. I've become mired in duty. In a sadness so deep and wide that I have forgotten that there might have been a shoreline to it.

Yet, once in a while, that wild girl makes a break for it, and I laugh, reveling in it. When the window is down and the music is playing and I'm driving. Walking in the woods. Writing. Watching my daughter release her wild woman. I now know I have to make my own adventures. I have to find my own stories into which I can jump.

The iron hands of parent, time and sorrow haven’t squished the wild child. She just needs rest. I’ll keep her safe until she’s ready.